Ok, we have two contradictory opinions so far. Send two Panzers to deal with the T-70s while the rest help the infantry (and wait with the infantry until they arrive) OR send all Panzers to deal with the T-70s and continue the advance with the infantry. I will wait to hear more advice before making a decision.

I would split the tank platoon. HQ + one section towards town; remaining section to deal with 2 T70s. Do need to deal with the T34 on the other side of town and to support the infantrys grab on the town.

With that T-34 on the other side of the village the infantry avenue of approach is very bad. The T-34 will be able to shoot at all the infantry before they even get to the first house let alone try to cross that cross street.

Looking at the lay of the land there seems to be a shallow valley to the right of the trees that may provide cover from the T-34, can't tell if it leads right to the village though. May want to redirect the infantry approach through that instead.

Ok, looks like "keep the panzers together" wins by a very slight edge. However, I'm going to take it slow with the infantry per some of the other advice and see if there is a "safer" route into town given the position of the other T-34.

Here are the plots for Turn 12. I'm using Rush to quickly redeploy the Panzer Platoon towards the T-70s. The crest should block any enemy fire and LOS for our movement until we are heading towards the T-70s (no enemies in sight, except for the rightmost Panzer)

Two of the Panzergrenadier platoons are moving towards the right now. The woods there do slope a bit to the right and I'm aiming to use that slope to conceal at least one platoon from the other T-34 we spotted. That platoon will be the most advanced platoon - we can see what it sees before committing the others, or move the others in support sooner if we so choose.

Otherwise, the turn proceeds uneventfully. A few near misses from the T-70s, but the Panzers are almost in position to engage them as a full platoon again. The infantry is still moving, so here's the situation while I run another turn.

We cause quite a bit of damage to one T-70 and finally destroy it. The Panzergrenadiers are still moving up.

Our Panzers can't see the other T-70, so I will move them a bit further forward. I chose their current positions so that the woods on the platoon's left would screen me from the flanking T-34, but I think pushing forward a bit further is safe as the village and the slope leading to it will be between us.

Here are the plots for Turn 14. I order the Panzers to Bound towards the remaining T-70, with one waypoint to make sure they get LOS to it around that farmhouse. The solid lines are those tanks that will be moving, the translucent will be covering this phase, then they'll switch during the Reaction phase.

I move the 3rd Platoon infantry across the slope to take the lead heading into the village. All of the infantry are on Advance orders. The main thing slowing us down here is frankly the beta implementation of fatigue, which is tiring out our infantry a bit too quickly. The 3rd Platoon is still fine, but the other two hadn't fully recovered and are tiring out again. This is already addressed in the newest beta build, which I can't upgrade this AAR to due to save incompability, so please bear with me. Just imagine these guys had a very long day before this battle.

Here are our positions at the Start of Turn 15. With no enemies in sight, I will run one more turn to let the damaged Panzer catch up a bit and allow the two Panzergrenadier platoons that are heading towards the village on the right side of the wooded slope to advance a bit further.

You can see that our victory bar is doing well - about halfway to the top now and we haven't yet secured the two main objectives.

A very uneventful turn, with one exception. A few of our Panzers and some of our infantry think they catch sight of some moving Soviet infantry on the road heading into the village, but just as soon as we think we see them, they are gone before we can fire anything at them. I've marked the location where we caught a brief glimpse on this screenshots. We could not see what kind they were.

I would area fire the suspected infantry spot or around it for about 30 seconds with a couple Pz while moving some infantry up the edge of the woods. I am not sure what's on your flanks but I would keep some infantry on the left to keep anyone from getting into the village from the left road.

You got the T-70's so BRAVO! Now the P-IIIL's are out on a wing and some can stay in over-watch to cover that(as you look from German perspective)right side of the map. You need to get the tanks in to support the infantry drive into the town.Lets try

As I see it: 1) Have the tanks do an end around from the right to the village. Drawing fire and responding with HE while the infantry moves in with half-track support from the woods road area.How many HE rounds do the P-IIIL"s have? Do they have smoke shells to help them close the range under cover?

2) Move armor down the treeline toward the road looking to get LOS on the road Soviet reinforcements seemed to be taking. At the same time moving cautiously to range on that other T-34. See how well you can cover the infantry drive from the forest into town.

3) Send two tanks back to the road to more directly support the infantry drive through the forest and into town. Also use that forest to cover P-IIIL's getting closer to the other spotted T-34 for APCR ammo to be most effective.

Personally I like a combination of options #2 and #3......have 3 tanks move down the treeline while to other hightail it back to the road and get up to the infantry. But make any major moves after the 2 tank unit mates up with the infantry.This will allow you to rest the fatigued InF and then have both groups working together.Hopefully the T-34 will react to the tank move in the treeline and offer up an opportunity for the tanks on the road.Just pray the Bolshevik's don't drop a mortar barrage into the trees.(Just like I'd love to do to the SS)

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812 How many HE rounds do the P-IIIL"s have? Do they have smoke shells to help them close the range under cover?

The infantry has some smoke grenades, but according to our research the Panzer IIILs did not have a main gun smoke round, so they don't have smoke (the larger Panzers with 75mm+ guns did have smoke ammo). The HE ammo status for the Panzers is good. They are running low on APHE/APCR, but they each have 30-40 rounds of HE.

quote:

2) Move armor down the treeline toward the road looking to get LOS on the road Soviet reinforcements seemed to be taking. At the same time moving cautiously to range on that other T-34. See how well you can cover the infantry drive from the forest into town.

Just FYI, eyeballing it there does seem to be good visibility from the edge of the woods on the right side of the map to the closest road that goes into the village.

quote:

Just pray the Bolshevik's don't drop a mortar barrage into the trees.(Just like I'd love to do to the SS)

Yeah, now that we know they have artillery we do have to consider that. The good news is that Soviet artillery does not tend to be particularly responsive. Keeping mobile is a pretty good defense.

Great work on the T-70's. Quick question on that. Are the tank crews handled abstractly once they bail? I don't see any of them running around for cover or fleeing the map. I know some crews survived, as they abandoned some of the damaged T-70's. I'm used to seeing numerous crews hiding or fleeing.

Keep moving infantry on the left side of the road, trying to get a glimpse of the left flank T-34. From the earlier map, it looks like deep snow right there, so the troops there might end up as a fire base and observation position.

The advance in the small gully to the right of the woods seems to be a good plan.

Once the damaged panzer is back in the fold, then break with armor support for the suspected Russian infantry.

It's definitely going forward - I'm keeping the AAR system on the same beta build I started it with to make sure it can be completed. I'm just making sure that all the feedback is in before running the next turn.

ORIGINAL: heinrich55 Great work on the T-70's. Quick question on that. Are the tank crews handled abstractly once they bail? I don't see any of them running around for cover or fleeing the map. I know some crews survived, as they abandoned some of the damaged T-70's. I'm used to seeing numerous crews hiding or fleeing.

Crews are not represented once they abandon a tank or gun. In the campaign, there's a better chance of recovering that unit if the crew survived.

Some great advice here - I have enough to last me at least a few turns I think. The amalgam of your comments is the plot below. I'm moving three of the Panzer IIILs along the treeline to flank the village. The damaged Panzer IIIL is just moving to the crest where it will be able to provide Area/HE fire on the road. The Panzer IIIL that was lowest on AP is heading back to support the infantry with the goal of focusing on soft targets.

The Panzergrenadier platoon with nearly full stamina is continuing to advance towards the town. The other two are resting. One platoon of halftracks is moving up a bit to support the Panzergrenadiers on the far side of the road. We will likely want to rest the other Panzergrenadiers for a while, so we can wait while the Panzers get into position.

I set the Panzers to have Advance orders for now - they will move more slowly than on other move orders, but spot better and have a chance for opportunity fire.

Well, I'd say we found some enemy infantry! The turn is uneventful with one exception - one of our Panzergrenadier squads in the lead platoon is suppressed after taking some fire. We suspect we know the building it came from, but we don't have confirmation and no targeting line. I decide to halt the lead Panzergrenadiers for now to wait for the other two platoons to rest up and the supporting Panzer IIIL.